British Gas cuts workforce ‘to keep down bills’

British Gas is cutting about 850 jobs from its services business, which installs and repairs boilers and other household energy appliances.

Britain’s largest energy supplier claimed that the money saved would help it to keep bills lower for customers.

Unions warned, however, that the job losses would harm customer services and that they would fight any compulsory redundancies.

British Gas said that the cuts — which represent almost one in ten jobs in its services division — would focus on management and support roles and it insisted that customer services would not be affected.

The company, which is owned by Centrica and employs about 30,000 people in Britain, is already planning to cut about 270 jobs elsewhere. It said that it would begin consulting staff…